Thursday, September 04, 2014

And now for the debut of a little feature we like to call Batman Is Present at the Great Disasters of the Past! The concept is simple and straightforward: Batman is present at...well, you get the picture.

"Mary Jane Watson Paper Doll" from Marvel Age #54 (September 1987), pencils by John Romita Sr., inks by Vince Colletta, colors by Janet Jackson. Why the Sam Scratch are they credited in reverse on the page, huh?

It's September 1! (Did you remember to say "rabbit, rabbit" first thing this morning?) That means it's time for another month-long feature to amuse and edumacate you while I try to untangle all the files that make up the long-on-hiatus 365 Days of KirbyTech feature. This month, all month, you'll need a printer, cardboard, a glue-stick, and sharp scissors (or, a parent or guardian with sharp scissors). That's right, it's a month during which you can create your very own personal papyrus platoon based on this feature  it's Paper Doll Month! And I absolutely promise you: no Katy Keene!

That said, it's a bittersweet beginning to the feature as we salute one of the greatest artists of comics in all genres (but especially teen and comedy books), Stan Goldberg, who passed away yesterday. Stan was an extraordinary artist who, altho' he frequently drew within a publisher or line's house style, gave his own distinctive and energetic feel to his work. Even if he was uncredited (or, in the case of Marvel's teen/comedy/romance titles, frequently credited as Sol Brodsky), you could identify his art. Just as Carl Barks was commonly known as "The Good Duck Artist" in Disney comics before creator credits were printed, I've always considered Stan Goldberg as "The Good Archie Artist." (I really like Dan DeCarlo too, but so many fo my favorite stories are by Goldberg.)

He was an accomplished colorist responsible for the vast majority of the covers of the Atlas and early Marvel Age, and he was fluent in several styles. Here's examples of his paper doll work for Marvel's Patsy Walker and supporting characters:

Sunday, August 31, 2014

Hey, why is it that any time cartoonists and comic book artists draw live lobsters, they still color ‘em red, instead of green? (They don’t turn red until you boil ‘em so you can eat their delicious, delicious flesh.) And interestingly enough (if’n you’re into that thing), somebody at Western Comics/Gold Key musta noticed, because when they eventually reprinted that Moby Duck comic, they color-corrected the lobsters!:

The only covers in the Ten of a Kind above that don’t actually violate this rule are 2000 AD (which is in black-and-white), Archie (which doesn’t show a lobster) and Marvel’s Fallen Angels, which shows two lobsters: one green and one blue. The green lobster is Bill the Cyborg Lobster…

...and the blue one is Don the Mutant Lobster, who I think really oughta be on the teaching staff at the Jean Grey Academy. Marvel Comics: unfair to 1980s miniseries lobsters! Still, we can thrill to the fact that they were considered worthy of an entry in The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe! Now that's comic book validation!